A Symphony for a Broken Orchestra aims to fix the crisis of our nation’s ill-fated funding for the arts in public schools…One instrument at a time. This project began because Robert Blackson, Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at Temple Contemporary (Temple University’s on-Campus art gallery), learned that public school children in Philadelphia weren’t able to take music classes because their schools’ instruments were broken and the district didn’t have a budget to fix or replace them.

Blackson displayed 1,000 broken instruments from these schools inside Temple Contemporary to raise the public’s awareness about this issue as well as the general lack of funding for the arts in schools. Each instrument on display symbolizes a student that’s unable to take a music class in their school. Additionally, Pulitzer Prize winning Composer, David Lang, composed a special arrangement to be performed by local musicians playing these instruments. The performance, as well as the ongoing ‘adopt and instrument’ campaign will raise funds to insure that the show will go on for Philadelphia’s music and arts education classes.

In a study of American High Schools, Chapman (1982) reported that 100 percent (of schools) require no study of dance or theater; 98 percent require no music; and 97 percent require no visual arts. These are troubling statistics and even though these studies took place in late 1970s, it is evident that it is an ongoing problem.

Freedman & Hernandez (1998) stated that the view a society has regarding the arts tells us a lot about its nature. Arts education has usually thrived within a liberal society with open borders to the ‘outside world’. A society’s willingness to encourage multiple concepts of belief, culture, and experience, can lead to its continual success. The viewpoint on the arts in this environment is typically positive as evident during the times of Ancient Athens, the Renaissance, and the Age of Enlightenment. However, in an isolated and insular society, art and other art and language forms that express individuality are repressed through systems of control. This is evidently seen throughout various periods such as in Ancient Sparta, Nazi Germany, and in contemporary totalitarian dictatorships like North Korea. In these societies, a strong military focus overrides the concept of individualism by asserting that citizens must maintain a uniformity of allegiance to their government.

In Western Civilization there are major facets that dictate the course of a nation’s curriculum, which have continued to hold influence from Ancient Greece to today. They are, as Efland (1990) explained: patronage, education, and censorship. In the United States of America, these facets have greatly shaped our educational system. The government, with this No Child Left Behind policy, has driven the motivation for schools to focus on training students to do well on standardized tests, which has reduced the amount of time, money, and passion devoted to arts education in public schools. Add to this fact the idea that many believe the arts produce beautiful objects but don’t have a utilitarian value beyond its aesthetic qualities, and it is evident that our society has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. The value of art has suffered devastating blows through politicians like Ronald Reagan and Rudy Giuliani denouncing artists and works of art, and Obama’s remarks that art history isn’t a practical area of education.

It is our job as arts professionals, to make explicit, the connection between our field and the greater human experience. Compelling arguments from educators like Elliot Eisner and psychologists like Jean Piaget have been made on the overwhelming, well-rounded benefits that art has on a child’s development. If the arts are given a sustainable chance, we can show the patrons, the education hierarchy, and the policy makers that its payback will be invaluable. In a country that values its independence, a rejection of art, which promotes self-expression and creative cognition, is a glaring invalidity of our autonomy.

The current state of the arts, or rather the lack thereof, is visually apparent through the poignant display of the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra.

Notes:

Chapman, Laura (1982). Rites of Passage: Art in the Secondary School in Instant Art Instant Culture. New York: Teacher’s College Press.

Efland, Arthur. (1990), A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts. New York: Teachers College Press.

Freedman, Kerry, and Hernandez, Fernando, editors. (1998), Curriculum, Culture and Art Education: Comparative Perspective. New York: State University of New York Press.